The Early Word: Defending Bailouts

According to The Times’s David E. Sanger and Jackie Calmes, the president will also have a message: the bailouts in the auto industry worked, as they did in the banking sector. According to Mr. Obama’s advisers, the government’s investment in General Motors and Chrysler limited the numbers of jobs lost, while taxpayers are projected to be on the hook for relatively little.

Still, as Mr. Sanger and Ms. Calmes note, “bailout” is a bit of a loaded term these days, and the White House cannot be sure that the voters will agree with the government’s intervention into the auto industry.

“In the run-up to the midterm Congressional elections, a reaction against big government — as epitomized by the bailouts of banks, two of the three biggest automakers and the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — has driven the Tea Party movement and a more general criticism that the Obama administration has overreached,” they write.

Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal’s Elizabeth Williamson examines a topic the president may try to dodge on his trip Friday: a free-trade agreement with South Korea. Michigan lawmakers are among the chief opponents of the deal, in large part because of fear that it would favor the South Korean auto industry. The White House has indicated that a revamped agreement, set to be revealed in November, will address barriers to American auto imports, Ms. Williamson reports.

Rangel Roundup: The stage is now set for a public trial of Representative Charles B. Rangel in Congress this fall. On Thursday, the House ethics committee laid out 13 charges of ethical violations against the Harlem Democrat and, as The Times’s David Kocieniewski reports, those violations included both well-reported and relatively new details about Mr. Rangel’s actions.

Looking forward, there is still a chance Mr. Rangel could strike a settlement to avoid a trial. But if a trial were to happen, Mr. Kocieniewski reports that it would probably not start until September, and an ethics subcommittee of eight lawmakers — four from each party — would basically serve as the jury.

Midterm Madness: Mr. Rangel’s issues are among the problems Speaker Nancy Pelosi has had to deal with as she tries to keep her party in the majority this midterm cycle. But as Politico’s David Rogers reports, the speaker has promised to defend the Democrats’ legislative record, even as she is attacked as the face of her party’s control of Congress.

“If Democrats are to survive,” Mr. Rogers writes, “aides predict the tough-minded Pelosi will face a painful chore: performing the triage needed when money runs low and old friends and allies must be cut loose to save those who have a better chance of winning.”

But as The Times’s James Dao reports, one issue that might not be all that prominent this election season is the war in Afghanistan — even after the recent leak of tens of thousands of classified reports on the conflict. And, Mr. Dao adds, strategists in both parties don’t see that changing unless the war goes south or the economy makes a dramatic improvement.

And finally, moving up to Alaska, The Washington Post’s Jason Horowitz takes a look at where Senator Lisa Murkowski’s re-election campaign stands after the state’s former governor Sarah Palin endorsed her primary opponent.

“After political observers have spent months scouring races nationwide for evidence of Palin’s right-wing reach vs. the staying power of bring-home-the-bacon Republicans like Murkowski, it turns out that the ideal testing ground may be the women’s own Alaskan backyard,” Mr. Horowitz writes.

Fraud Case: The Times’s Edward Wyatt looks into the charges against Samuel and Charles Wyly, the billionaire brothers and conservative donors who have been charged with extensive securities fraud and insider trading. (In 2004, the brothers helped finance the Swift Boat campaign against Senator John Kerry during the Democrat’s run for president.)

Up on the Hill: On Thursday, Senate Republicans blocked a bill that would create a lending program and provide tax breaks to small businesses — a measure supported by the United States Chamber of Commerce and the National Federation of Independent Business. As The Times’s David Herszenhorn writes, the move illustrates just how much Republicans want to deny the Democrats any more legislative victories this campaign season.

Elsewhere on Capitol Hill, a new Senate report released on Thursday estimates that as many as 6,600 of the graves at Arlington National Cemetery may have been mishandled, as The Los Angeles Times reports. And, according to The Washington Post, a Senate subcommittee hearing on the matter got a bit testy, with lawmakers sharply criticizing the cemetery’s former superintendent and deputy superintendent.

Administration Daybook: Education Secretary Arne Duncan is scheduled to read to local school children at an event for the administration’s “Let’s Read. Let’s Move” initiative, with actor Quinton Aaron (from “The Blind Side”) also scheduled to participate.

President Obama drew criticism on Thursday when he said, “we don’t have a strategy yet,” for military action against ISIS in Syria. Lawmakers will weigh in on Mr. Obama’s comments on the Sunday shows.Read more…